Ratchet and Clank: Riding the Dragon
by Space Keet
Summary: After a tip from Slim, Ratchet, Talwyn and Clank are on a wild chase to fight Lyrebird on an unknown planet filled with humans and dragons; Will they make some friends and take them and their leader down or is this it? (Final rendition of this story, thanks to Polska 1999 for allowing me to use Oscar and Mason!)
1. A Slim encounter of the Incognito kind

Veldin was charming this time of year the same dusty sort of landscape that Ratchet was abandoned as a child; Lombax instincts enabling him to survive his formative years. The bright sun baking the orange landscape (even this early) as Ratchet and Clank trek across the sun-dried rock, having parked Aphelion a few metres away to stroll a bit while Talwyn stayed in the ship to escape the heat. The Lombax holds a rather vacant expression on his face as they walk, his tail swaying lightly from side to side, surprisingly keeping stride with his smaller robotic friend.

Clank was looking towards his friend, he had been through so much with him, this planet being where it all started and he can figure out when Ratchet is troubled. "Is something the matter, Ratchet?" he asks out of concern.

One of Ratchet's large striped ears twitches and he looks to his friend, "You know," he starts, looking ahead, "even though we've been gone all this time, and I never found my real home, this home hasn't really changed much since we left." His green eyes share the same colour as house Slytherin, providing an odd, but nice balance against his orange and yellow Siamese pointed fur with auburn stripes on his ears, his tail sharing the same stripes but being slightly fainter.

Clank hops over a small rock as he keeps pace with the larger steps of the Lombax. "After you stopped the Deplanestiser, interstellar traffic to Veldin slowed to nearly zero percent. It has not recovered since," he says; he was right for there was hardly any ships coming to port onto the desert planet, that was mostly used for ship repair.

The duo begin to pass a warehouse as Ratchet starts to talk again, "Can't say I'm not disappointed, but at the same time it's nice and quiet. Just how I li-" "Pst! Kid, turn around," a voice interrupts Ratchet from behind, both Lombax and Robot turning around with confused expressions, cautiously walking towards where the voice came from.

"Do I recognise that voice?" Clank questions as they stop, peeking in to see a pair of eyes peeking out of a crate. It's Slim Cognito and he wants to talk.

"Listen, I know this is on short notice, but someone is moving in on my territory, and I don't like the look of 'em. No simple criminal outfit uses such a hefty collection of assets and is that serious about what they're doing," he expands without being prompted, seeming to trust these two greatly to make them privy to such information.

Ratchet raises a brow, his head bare from a stuffy helmet. "So you want us to help you?" he questions, tail flicking slightly.

They sense Slim nodding, "You two are perfectly capable gentlemen, I'd trust no one else." The weight behind his words holds true, for he had met them quite early on in their career.

Ratchet nods slowly, his face held in mild confusion as he works out what Slim is asking. He starts his sentence slowly, "...Again, you want us to do police work for you?"

"Absolutely."

Both furry brows are raised now in a questioning manner, "For you, a criminal?" he inquires further.

Clank jumps in, scolding Ratchet, "He has furnished us plenty of assistance in the past, Ratchet. We need to help him!"

Ratchet makes a drawn out audible thinking noise, "Euuuuuaaaahh….Alright," he relents, agreeing (really he had no choice since Clank was right).

That answer pleases Slim greatly, "Good, good. Just tell me where you are in the next month or two, and I'll hook you up with some… tools that may be useful."

Ratchet and Clank both take the time to peer into the warehouse and past the box Slim is hiding in, a number of stacked crates groan and moan past the open door, occasionally shaking. Ratchet's large ears sway lightly as the Lombax turns his head to face Slim, "Wh-why are you here anyway? This is the last place I thought I'd find you."

"I'll just say I've been rather...busy since you've been gone; No one ever comes here," a thought seems to come to the hidden man, "well, except my most valued customers." He looks at them as he directs his classy tone at them knowingly.

This earns an eye roll from Ratchet, but the Lombax couldn't deny that it was true (judging by the at least six R.Y. in the boot of Aphelion).

"We will be in contact soon, Mr Cognito," Clank says, waiting for Ratchet to depart. The Lombax nods at his friend, signalling that they'll leave soon but he has one last thing to say, "As long as you're paying us, and I know you can, I've got no problem with it." He cracks a small smile.

"Of course, I am an honest businessman as always." He sends them off with that and they walk out of the warehouse, heading back to Aphelion to park the Lombax ship fully at Ratchet's hangar to prepare for the trip ahead. They walk back across the desert that's now blistering hot as the sun rose to it's near full apex in the sky, the atmosphere a dusty tan with light blue barely peeking through. Some of the flowers on the cacti having closed to shield themselves from the harsh sun, other prickly plants dot the desert floor with a muted green, curling out to catch the harsh sun instead of shying away from it. Ratchet doges these ones, knowing full well how painful their spines are, having gotten one straight through his shoe once from accidentally stepping on it (he thought that wouldn't happen).

They make it to Aphelion, dust already beginning to settle on the titanium plates muting her blue paint. Her pulse generators making the ship hover several centimetres off the ground, kicking up loose dirt onto Aphelion herself and pushing it further out, including into Ratchet's fur as he approached. Ratchet jumps up onto the nose of the ship, bouncing down then up to compensate for his weight and the additional weight in her small cargo bay normally called 'the boot' (since it's underneath Ratchet's boots). The canopy opening up to allow Ratchet and Clank to jump in, they land effortlessly on the seats, Ratchet sitting next to Talwyn as the canopy closes and Aphelion wakes up, greeting them, "Ratchet, Clank, where to?" the feminine Lombax made AI asks.

"Just several metres ahead, need to unload the stuff from the hold into my house," Ratchet says, the ship humming to life. As acknowledgement she simply glides across the desert floor instead of lifting off fully, not needing to for the short drive; parking herself in the warehouse, and teleporting the stuff from her hold to the ground nearby. She opens her canopy to let her drivers and companions out, opening up her actual landing gear (used mostly for resting) and lessening the power through her pulse drives, touching down gently.

Talwyn looks around, amazed that this is where her boyfriend lived up until he was seventeen when he first started this galaxy saving career. She wanders through the hangar while Ratchet and Clank start to organise the boxes a bit before putting things away.

Ratchet begins to put some things away, namely the guns he bought from Gadgetron, Megacorp and Grummelnet. He was also picking up to have some sense of order on his life so far. While putting the guns and gadgets away, he checks to make sure that the safety is on (not really wanting a Nitro-Launcher going off while he sleeps). Talwyn soon walks over to come help.

"So, Ratchet," Clank starts, also helping pick up the cargo, moving it haphazardly out of the way; knowing that they won't be home often enough for it to warrant a full organisation. "Where will we start looking for Slim's mysterious deadly rival?" he asks, watching Ratchet hoist several sets of armour towards dummies.

Talwyn decided to finish with the rest of the guns when she heard Clank's question, turning her head over her shoulder to Ratchet. "What job did you somehow manage to pick up while on a walk?" she asks with a hint of amusement behind her voice, not mad at Slim being mentioned for she knew who he was.

Ratchet fixes her with a sheepish grin while affixing the Duraplate Steel armour onto a dummy. "Someone is moving in onto Slim's territory and he wants the two of us to check it out," he answers, strapping the last of the armour on before moving to the Adamantium armour set.

Talwyn checks the safety on the Tempest while she puts it away, brushing her hands on her pants. "May I come along?" she asks; she doesn't know what they're getting into, but she feels that they could use some extra help.

"Sure," Ratchet says, Clank nodding his agreement. "We're going to the Black Markets to have a look around for whomever is butting in," Ratchet finishes saying, stubbing his toe on a particularly heavy armour set, cursing lightly under his breath.

After making sure that Ratchet was okay, Clank responds, "The Black Markets sound like a good place to start, and, because we frequent there from time to time somebody may be willing to help us."

Talwyn knows they mostly get their illegal weapons, weapon and ship upgrades through the Black Market. Despite them being illegal, the weapons – namely the R.Y. – proved to be very useful in saving the universe. So she had no reason (despite being a captain of a police force) to try to arrest her boyfriend for it.

"So we will be departing, then?" Aphelion asks, having been listening to their conversation.

Ratchet looks around, not seeing anything that he needs to go walking in the Black Markets. "Yeah, nothing we need here," he confirms, walking towards Aphelion.

Talwyn stops him, "Not going to to take armour?" she asks, secretly hoping he says no since he's only in pants, gloves, harness for Clank and his hat; his yellow chest completely bare and she's enjoying it immensely. She herself was wearing a shirt, pants, boots and her trademark bandanna over her brown hair.

Ratchet shakes his head, jumping into the cockpit as Aphelion opens the canopy. "We're not looking for a fight," he says, helping Clank up. Talwyn soon joins them, after placing her holstered gun down on a table, knowing that both her and Ratchet could take people out in a fist fight if they needed to.

Aphelion turns on her pulse generators as the canopy closes, backing out of the hangar she turns, then blasts off towards the atmosphere to break through it and carry them to their next destination.

They were coasting in the Shadow Sector, Ratchet was driving since he knew where to go, looking carefully around when Talwyn notices something, crying out, "There! Is that it?" and pointing to something through the windshield. The Black Markets, a haven for anything illegal really, even some things Ratchet sees as wrong (you can't agree with everything).

The Black Markets was a black space station, camouflaging effortlessly with space without needing fancy cloakers, nope, a simple can of black paint will do. Talwyn was amazed at how large it was when they got closer, the station accepting Ratchet's hails without a second thought. He does seem to frequent this outpost moderately often outside of Slim. They are guided to an empty lot to park Aphelion, the ship lowering herself down then opening her canopy for her passengers.

After they got out – and after Clank jumps on Ratchet's back – Ratchet leads Talwyn into the main market area, a cacophony of sounds, sights and smells great Talwyn as she's led through the paths, taking care to doge the people (and checking her wallet after every pass as well. She's a bit paranoid). The Black Markets were just like a normal market, if that market sold highly illegal stuff that would give you a lifetime of commitment. Soon Ratchet slows, clearly signalling that they're nearby where they need to be.

Talwyn looks to him and sees a look of confusion on his face, looking towards where he's gazing, she gasps. "Primitive weaponry!" she says, shocked. The weapons were bows, arrows, axes, swords and various other weapons and gadgets that clearly came from a primitive world compared to their own.

"I knew this was bad, Slim doesn't lie, and he doesn't ask for my help much. It's also why I agreed to you coming, Tal," Ratchet says to Talwyn as he walks towards the booth, his girlfriend hot on his tail (not literally).

The figure manning the booth looks at them, almost like he was waiting for them to approach. "Finally decided you wanted something, eh?" he says, his voice harsh and clipped as he speaks to them.

It doesn't seem to phase Ratchet as he nods. "Yes, could I get a crate with one of each?" he asks, knowing what cards to play effortlessly. Talwyn held her tongue, the question on it can wait until they're in the safety of Aphelion.

The trio wait patiently as the guy fills a crate with one of everything available. Once he was done he slides the crate forward, saying his price, "Fifty thousand bolts."

Ratchet pays him that much wordlessly, wanting to get out of here, he grabs one end of the crate while Talwyn grabs the other end, she begins to walk backwards, Ratchet pointing his back towards the booth, Clank looks to the top of it. "Lyrebird," he states accidentally out loud.

"What was that, Clank?" Ratchet asks his friend, the people around them respectfully parting, understanding a good buy.

"That booth, Lyrebird, seems these are the new guys moving in," he expands with a chuckle, Ratchet shaking his head a bit in amusement as they continue walking along.

Soon they reach Aphelion, the ship immediately teleporting the medium sized crate into her hold as she opens the canopy, Ratchet and Talwyn wasting no time in getting in. Once they were seated, Talwyn finally asks Ratchet the question she was holding, "Buying for evidence?"

Ratchet nods, saying, "Yep, we're taking these to some old friends of mine, we need to let them know."

"They would also help us narrow down where we need to go," Clank adds as Aphelion takes off from the lot and leaving the station.

"Where are we going?" comes Aphelion's question as they coast while she waits. It's Clank that answers, "Marcadia." Jotting the co-ordinates into her own computer she jets off towards the planet, understanding that she needs to do so in moderate haste.

* * *

They had dropped by a little unannounced to the surprise of the President, but after Ratchet dragging the crate up the stairs and briefing him on what's going on, the President soon managed to summon his daughter and Al to a small conference room with Ratchet, Clank and Talwyn. Qwark was unfortunately (thankfully, actually) away and couldn't attend, neither could Skid or Helga. Ratchet also had to quickly introduce Talwyn as his girlfriend before they continued.

"What the, what the hell are these?" Al begins, picking up a dagger before continuing, "they're so primitive." The crate was on the table and mostly unpacked, Ratchet and Talwyn having taken care of doing so carefully.

"Exactly," Clank starts as Ratchet gently takes the blade from Al so he wouldn't cut himself, the Lombax holding it, waiting for Clank to continue. "Absolutely undetectable by most modern means," he finishes, Ratchet slipping the blade into its sheath then into his glove, Talwyn uses an x-ray scanner then a metal detector, both showing negative signs. Ratchet removes the dagger, setting it back on the table, Al grabbing it again to examine it.

Sasha had a worried expression on her face watching this, "So the perfect weapon for an assassin?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

Talwyn nods, saying, "Yes, although, they're made of metal, how does the metal detector not go off?" she muses, looking at the scanner.

"Because they're coated in a kind of substance that hides them," Al informs them, having grabbed more of the weapons (carefully) to study them. Almost every single one of these weapons have this coating.

Clank speaks up before someone else does, "I think it may be to hide them from when they are in transport. This Lyrebird also seems to sell them as exotic goods."

"Yeah," Ratchet starts, "based on the price I had to pay for a crate on one of everything," he comments drily.

"How much did they charge?" Sasha asks, looking at one of the arrows inquisitively.

"50k bolts," Talwyn and Ratchet answer simultaneously, earning sympathetic winces from mainly Sasha. Clank and Al too busy looking at the weapons; Soon the other three join in, all collectively agreeing wordlessly to figure out where the weapons are from, Al getting up briefly to get his computer.

Ten minutes of discussion and research later they find three primitive planets in the galaxy with weapons matching, much to the annoyance of everyone around the table. Ratchet letting out an audible groan when he heard the news, having taken to cuddling with Talwyn a bit while everyone else cross referenced. Talwyn herself also let out a small groan; this situation was getting bigger by the minute.

"More narrowing, uuughhhhh, this is going to take ages," Ratchet groans again, his head tilted onto the back of the chair, eyes to the ceiling, right arm loosely around Talwyn's shoulders.

Clank holds a hand up to his chin in thought. "Hmmmm….What if we were to find out Lyrebird's smuggling paths?" he suggests, clearly hinting that if they find the paths, they could find the main planet that Lyrebird is exploiting.

"Smuggling paths?" Sasha questions, wishing Clank to continue she asks another question, "how will we find that out?"

Clank chuckles, "We know a guy, but we need to leave to go meet him," he says, looking to Ratchet and Talwyn expectantly, they nod untangling themselves and getting up from their chairs.

Sasha nods for them to depart, saying, "Come back with anything you happen to find out, we'll clean up a bit so Qwark doesn't hurt himself." She begins to do just that, picking up some of the arrows that fell on the floor.

After chuckling a bit, Ratchet, Talwyn and Clank leave the room, walking down the corridor taking a few turns and finding themselves outside without being stopped. In order not to jinx it, they quickly scramble into Aphelion, asking her to take them to Veldin, promptly.

They reach Veldin in record time, landing next to Racthet's hanger they depart from Aphelion and Ratchet and Clank begin to make their way to the warehouse Slim is hiding in. Talwyn is tagging along, deciding to brave the heat because she expressed interest in meeting him. Ratchet leads her to the warehouse, peeking in to see Slim still hiding in his box. Clank is the one that signals for Talwyn to wait outside for a bit until he's aware of her pressence.

"Hey Slim, we found something about these guys called 'Lyrebird' and we think they might be the ones responsible for pushing you out. Know their smuggle routes?" Ratchet asks, getting one thing out of the way first.

"Hmmm, the name does sound familiar. I can get them for you, but, there's something else you have, isn't there?" he asks, noticing Clank hanging by the door. Of course, he wasn't hostile in asking the question, he was just curious.

Talwyn peeks her head in, waving as Clank introduces her, "This is Talwyn Apogee, Ratchet's girlfriend." He then gives a small laugh.

"Woohoo hoooo, Ratchet, where'd you pick her up?" Slim compliments in an odd way, clearly praising the Lombax; Ratchet being very glad he has fur to hide his blush, Talwyn wasn't as lucky, a slight blush arising on her cheeks.

Clank was the one to speak up to break the ice, addressing Slim, "How long will it take for you to find the routes?" he asked as Ratchet and Talwyn recover.

Slim appears to think. "How much have you gathered?" he questions, needing to know what they uncovered.

Talwyn beats the boys to it, saying, "We discovered three planets that Lyrebird might possibly be getting the primitive weapons from; Terra-1, Terra-2 and Terra-3, three M class planets with developing civilisations," She informs aptly.

"Oooh, straight to the point, I like her. With that knowledge in mind, it'll take me three hours," Slim says, having done the calculations in his head already.

"Three hours?" Talwyn questions, then decides to expand, "You don't know where their base is." Confusion having seeped into her words as she tries to figure out how you can find routes to an organisation that has been largely silent.

"That comes with the triangulation," he says dismissively, Ratchet walking towards Talwyn to guide her back out to let Slim work so that they could get their information at the end of the three hours as he mentioned. They make their way back to Ratchet's hangar to chill for a bit before having to go back to Slim, walking back in they occupy some comfy chairs, Talwyn occupying Ratchet's lap as he switches on the TV.

He stops on Channel 64, the news channel clearly catching his eye as they watch a female Cazar get arrested, this Cazar was much like Sasha except more athletically built and looked strangely calm as she was being put in the car. The reporter speaks, "Six months ago Veronica Buttress was arrested on several accounts of smuggling and assassination attempts involving stilettos." The recording was obviously older, the trio noted, looking at the date and waiting for the reporter to continue. Talwyn wondering how you would kill someone with high heels.

"However," the reporter starts, everyone holding onto the edge of their seats, Ratchet keeping his girlfriend's purple tail from smacking his face as the reporter continues, "just three weeks ago Veronica escaped her cell, both her guards dead and has not been seen since, civilians are cautioned that if they see the rogue Cazar, they are to contact the authorities immediately and to evacuate the area. Darla Gretch, Channel 64 news." The rest of the news Talwyn, Ratchet and Clank tune out, beginning to talk about what they just heard.

"I'm a bit impressed she can kill someone in and with high heels," Talwyn remarks, that having been on her mind, looking at her own boots by sticking her leg in the air.

Ratchet lets out a slight grunt in amusement, "Yeah, but she sounds and looks dangerous, just that recording from six months ago I could feel she's planning something." Talwyn looks to him, asking, "You don't think she's related to Lyrebird do you?"

"Hard to say, when Slim snags us back we can ask him when they started to move in," Ratchet says with a shrug before hugging Talwyn.

"I looked into the report on the guards," Clank starts, drawing the couple's attention to him, their wordless gaze beckoning him to continue, "they were stabbed swiftly in the heart with a thin blade right through the sternum, after appearing to have been knocked out first." He finishes his report after reading up on it.

Ratchet and Talwyn share a grimace, collectively thinking that it won't be a good thing if she's related to Lyrebird in some way. In order to distract himself from that, Ratchet signals for the game controls after switching the channel from Annihilation Nation, not having fun memories about that place. Clank passes Talwyn and Ratchet a control each while he also grabs one, slotting in a multiplayer game to kill their boredom until they have to meet up with Slim.

They had played for two hours, then all three got bored; Clank moving to read up on news reports (specifically around Veronica) while Talwyn and Ratchet decided to take a one hour nap on the recliner and are still asleep, tails occasionally twitching.

An alarm on Clank goes off, its insistent beeping stirring Ratchet and Talwyn out of their nap as they look to Clank groggily and confused. "It is time to go back to Slim, he should be done now, we can ask about when Lyrebird started to become active as well," the Robot reminds, the Lombax and Markazian untangling themselves and climbing out of the recliner still groggy, beginning to right themselves, yawning. Pretty soon they're out the door, the cold blast of heat straight to the nose woke them up quite quickly and they make their way across the desert to the warehouse.

When they entered the warehouse they find a vid-console on a crate in front of Slim, the hidden man watching them come in. "Got your routes for ya, and a location," he says, aiming for them to look at the file themselves rather than him saying it. Ratchet and Talwyn read the small vid-console themselves as Clank walks up closer to the crate asking, "About when did Lyrebird move in, Mr Cognito?"

Slim thinks, "Hmmmm, well they made themselves known about six months ago and were gradually moving in, though it was one week ago that they started to be pain in my ass," he informs.

The three of them share the kind of glance one makes with their friends when they think they found something that's helpful to them. They then share a questioning shrug while Talwyn and Ratchet continue to skim through the reports before handing them to Clank to put away; Slim watching this, raising a hidden brow, asking, "What did you three find out?"

"Veronica Buttress was arrested six months ago, about when Lyrebird started to rise, but broke out of jail three weeks ago. One week ago Lyrebird started to push you aside," Clank expands, filling in just enough for the dealer to pick up on.

"So you think she's their leader?" Slim asks, at their nod they feel him shake his own head, "unfortunately that may be false, Veronica, well I've met her and she's not someone you want to cross paths with. On any circumstance I should say. Creepy lady, I mean you did see the recording, calm even when going to jail. She won't mess with Lyrebird, they're too insignificant for her to bother with on any level," he finishes wrapping up, hoping that he's actually right and that Veronica and Lyrebird aren't connected.

Ratchet nods anyway saying, "Thanks for your help Slim, we'll contact you when we find out more on Lyrebird and Veronica if she's connected." They begin to depart, Aphelion already outside and waiting for them.

"Yes, but we better hope she's not, oh and Talwyn," Slim says, briefly stopping the Markazian, she turns around in a questioning way as Slim continues, "if you ever need anything, fell free to contact me." She nods, knowing that despite him selling illegal weaponry he's a good business man. They fully depart, hoping back into Aphelion they leave the planet with as much haste as they arrived.

When they got back to Marcadia and were walking back up the corridor to the conference room, they heard other voices coming from the room, signalling that Qwark and the others were there. "What I want to know is, how do you kill someone with a shoe?" they hear Al question as they approach, clearly they saw the news report too. Ratchet, Talwyn and Clank stride in as Helga tosses a shoe at Al to demonstrate.

Clank sees this and shakes his head, saying, "Actually, the shoes were on her feet, they are bladed," he gives a small laugh then continues, "I read the written reports on her escape."

Sasha looks to Ratchet and Talwyn as Clank talks about how Veronica escaped to Al, Qwark, Helga and Skid. "Anything on the smuggling routes? As well as location?" she asks, then adds as an afterthought, "is Veronica connected?"

Ratchet shrugs to the last question, answering her, "We don't know, our contact hopes she isn't, but we do have a location: Pokitaru."

"The smuggling routes include all three of the M class planets, but there's more traffic coming out of Terra-1 and to it than the other two," Talwyn informs further. Sasha nods, thinking on the next course of action.

Qwark overheard and decided to invite himself into the conversation, "It's an incredibly important task, Ratchet! Something I would only trust to my successor."

Ratchet decides to be a bit snarky, "Eh, cut the crap, Qwark. You didn't even have to do anything in the first place." Qwark falls silent, well, he was going to say something but Talwyn glared at him to shut up.

Ratchet spins on his heel, departing the room. "We'll be back. Maybe," he says as they leave into the corridor.

As they're walking down the corridor back to Aphelion they were stopped a few times by interns and the like, mostly asking who Talwyn was, surprised when he mentions that she's his girlfriend. After their initial shock though they congratulated him and the couple with Clank are quickly back on their way out of the building, once out they jump into Aphelion.

"Where to?" the ship asks and three conjoined voices of "Pokitaru" answer her before they realise they all said that and share in a laugh as the ship chuckles herself, jetting off into the atmosphere and to Pokitaru, the vacation planet.

They had landed on one of the lush islands that make up one of the resorts, walking along and trying to find information on Lyrebird, any rumours or sightings. Unfortunately, after four hours of asking around and coming up dry the trio decided to sit at a restaurant, getting a bite to eat as they talk about the best course of action.

Talwyn picks at her beer-battered fish fillet, clearly choosing something one might argue to be very unhealthy, especially considering the deep-fried starchy batons. Ratchet was the one that went for something healthier, a fillet of another type of fish found here with soft pink flesh and white barring. This fish was baked after being marinated in a rather nice marinade that Ratchet found himself enjoying immensely, but he too couldn't pass up the chance to have something resembling potato chips but not quite. Clank didn't need to eat so he just sat with them.

"So what do we do now?" Talwyn asks, sipping at her drink that approached a chocolate milkshake after taking a break from eating her meal.

Ratchet shrugs, taking a sip from his own drink, something not unlike soda before saying, "Hop into Aphelion and scour the islands ourselves," he stated, clearly this being their last option in finding Lyrebird.

Talwyn groans as she cuts her white fleshed deep-fried fish, eating more of it before squeezing a citrus fruit onto the rest of it. "That'll take days! And I don't think we have that kind of time," she expresses, digging into her food more and her sweet vaguely-dairy substance as she tries to think.

"Well unless someone magically knows where Lyrebird is and haven't told us, we don't have much of a choice," Ratchets says, accidentally snapping slightly, the stress beginning to weigh on him and he decides to distract himself with his food.

They stay silent for a few moments longer, Talwyn also feels some of the stress from looking for Lyrebird and isn't that upset at him snapping at her accidentally. They finish their meal, staying in silence a few moments longer, Ratchet and Clank thinking on the best course of action and Talwyn is looking at the dessert menu.

"Want dessert?" Talwyn asks suddenly, drawing Ratchet's attention out of his thoughts and to her, gathering his thoughts to reply, "Uh, sure." He reaches for a dessert menu scanning it over, deciding what to order before they wave down a waiter. While they are deciding what to order, a familiar figure approaches them, Clank turning to talk to him while Ratchet and Talwyn continue deciding. It's the Plumber.

"Oh, hello," Clank greets and he nods back in equal greeting, saying, "Say, you guys are looking for Lyrebird that has set up shop here?" at their automatic nod he continues, "for, say, six thousand bolts I'll sell the location to ya."

Ratchet shares a glance with Clank wordlessly, the Robot knowing what to do and gives the Plumber six thousand bolts in trade for the location on Lyrebird's facility, the guy walking away whistling happily.

Like the situation didn't phase Ratchet, it didn't phase Talwyn, instead she just puts down the menu and looks to Ratchet, "What's the Leviathan's Butthole?" she asks, very confused and repulsed.

Ratchet looks over at her at the question, then at the menu to find it, "Oh, that, it's just a local name, stops the tourists from wanting to order and steal tons of the stuff, it's nice, you should try it. I've had it," he says, explaining it loosely.

"Ratchet that doesn't help, what is it," she asks, trying to find the ingredient listing.

"Cocoa sponge cake with molten cocoa sauce," Clank answers, also rather vaguely as Ratchet waves a waiter down ordering two Leviathan Buttholes (much to Talwyn's slight displeasure) after doing that, they turn to Clank as he activates the infobot.

A cold, calm, snake-like feminine voice speaks over the video, "If you wish to join Lyrebird, please come on down to our training facilities at this location on Pokitaru," she says with a slight lilt to her voice, almost as if she found humour in everything. At her mentioning the location, co-ordinates appeared on screen as the video ends.

Ratchet shudders, "Whoa, that gave me chills down my spine," he comments, smoothing the fur on his tail back down.

Talwyn shivers a bit as well, accepting her food from the waiter as he sets it down, surprised that it's just a dessert very similar to lava cake. "I don't want to meet whomever that voice belongs to," she comments, picking up her fork and cutting the spongy goodness to release the sweet sauce not unlike molten fudge.

"If she voiced over the video to Lyrebird, then we may end up meeting her anyways," Clank observes while his two friends dig into their dessert, savouring it for two reasons: because it was good and because it was extremely hot.

Ratchet was the first one to finish, Talwyn not far behind, both stand up simultaneously. The Lombax turns to his girlfriend and best friend, saying, "Well, let's pay and go take down Lyrebird." Clank and Talwyn nod as they all head to the cash register to pay; after doing that they begin to make their way back to Aphelion and climbing into the ship.

"Aphelion, take us to 34.6° W, 45.7° N," Clank asks as they get comfortable, Aphelion mapping out the route when she makes an unsure noise after noticing the geography she has to fly through.

"Something wrong?" Talwyn asks, noting the unsure noise from the ship.

"Yes, the geography is quite treacherous, many sea stacks that undoubtedly would have very harsh winds. There is one path that seems to be available to us, although..." the ship trails off, knowing the thing she has to say makes things mildly difficult.

"Although?" Ratchet prompts.

"I can get you in, but I can't stay to get you out. You'll need to find your own way off and through," she finishes, beginning to lift off and carry them across the planet to that location while the trio talk amongst themselves.

"You brought your hot-wiring kit, Tal?" Ratchet asks as they soar quickly over the water, no sea stacks currently in sight.

Talwyn checks the small space behind her seat, used more for personal items, searching through it, sitting back around, "Yeah I did," she confirms. She notes Ratchet's continued lack of armour, but dismisses it, she's not wearing any either.

They begin to near some of the sea stacks, Aphelion slowing down some to be able to navigate properly even through the 'safe' path that Lyrebird uses. Soon they reach the island that had the facility on it, a rather squat compound of mostly grey and gold with touches of white and blue. All in all, looked like a pretty typical training facility.

Aphelion drops them off underneath an overhang and out of sight, they grab Talwyn's hot-wiring kit, the hacker and two Version one N60 Blasters. She takes off while they climb up, Clank safely on Ratchet's back as they step up. It's eerily quiet aside from the sounds of the birds, not a single guard in sight as the couple make their way to the door, Talwyn checking just in case it's unlocked; it wasn't so Ratchet had to use the hacker to unlock it, rushing in guns ready when they find no enemies awaiting them. They share a glance, the kind when you know you're about to get royally butt-fucked.

They continue along checking every room they came across, soon finding themselves in a large circular, well-lit room, a small stage in front of them as they walk in, there's a pathway with railings one story above them, covering the circumference of the room.

"This must be where they'd do the initiation," Talwyn observes, looking around and taking in the scene, noticing a door to the right of the stage labelled 'Do Not Enter', she taps Ratchet's arm and points to it.

He squints at in in curiosity, those are extremely heavy locks, what ever is behind that door must be incredibly strong to warrant those kinds of locks. "Huh," he states in confusion.

They had walked nearly to the middle of the room when footsteps enter from where they came, someone wearing high heels, specifically stilettos Talwyn mentally notes as she wheels around to face their attacker-to-be, the Markazian's eyes going as wide as dinner plates as Clank warns Ratchet, "Raaattcheeeet..." as he turns around, his eyes also going wide. "Oh," is all he manages.

"I had known it was only a matter of time before you came," the cold, calm, snake-like voice says, the lilt in her voice dulled and sounding more annoyed as she continues, "I had bribed them not to say anything," she pauses slightly her brown brows narrowing and her tail lashing slightly. She focuses her sultry and discomforting gaze onto Ratchet and Talwyn, forcing them into waiting painfully before she finally continues, "Of course, I didn't account for the Plumber to find that abandoned infobot, but, I have spies everywhere, so as soon as they told me you were on your way, all I had to do was evacuate the building." She stands up straighter, twitching her ear slightly, her hair down to her shoulders and wavy. Her build was athletic.

Ratchet narrows his eyes in challenge, picking up his gun, taunting her, "What? Are you going to blow this place up? Face us right here and now?"

Talwyn soon matches his challenge, throwing in a taunt herself, "Well, Veronica Buttress, make your move, before we make ours first."

Veronica Buttress the escaped Cazar and leader of Lyrebird laughs; taking Ratchet and Talwyn by surprise as she does so, clearly finding humour in their taunts. She stops laughing, straightening, she charges, using a hidden blade that swung out from the bottom of her stiletto, she slices Talwyn's hand, causing her to yelp and drop her gun, back pedalling away while the nanites healed the cut. Next, Veronica spins slightly and rams her knee – the one that was already up – straight into Ratchet's chest, staggering him and she dispatches his gun in much the same way as she did to Talwyn.

"Oh Ratchet," she says, mocking the caring voice of a mother as the couple recover from that quick ordeal as she strides towards them and continues, "I've been following your adventures since Drek, I even know about your little girlfriend," she gestures to Talwyn as she said that. The Cazar charges again, but this time, Ratchet and Talwyn were ready, blocking and dodging her strikes, returning a few of their own. If they had noticed (not even Clank did) they would have seen that she's guiding them to the door they noticed earlier, and that the locks are unlocked.

When they were almost half a metre away from the door, she does two sweeping attacks with her legs, one to break their defence and the second was a bladed strike across the collar bone on both, causing them to stagger that rest of the way into the darkened room where something woke up and was merely listening and watching the battle with a pair of slited golden eyes. It watches them stumble and fall, their nanites working to close the wounds as the door closes, the beast growls threateningly at the woman laughing, saying, "Enjoy my new pet." as the door slams shut. The room was darkened but not completely black and the black, unseen, golden eyed beast growls in a defensive manner at the two that were just thrown in by the woman it doesn't like.

Ratchet and Talwyn get up painfully, struggling slightly to see in the dark, meeting two large olden orbs, pupils narrowed to a thin slit as it growls deeply at them. They swallow, this is going to be an interesting fight.


	2. Rat in a cage

It was a bit of a stare-down: reflective narrowed golden eyes that reflected the bare minimum of light available staring down a pair Markazian eyes and Lombax eyes. The beast growls at them as they move around the room; but they noticed that its pupils widened out a bit, still narrowed, just not so thin. The black beast could see better than them in the incredibly low light, coming from the vented window from above, yet it also sniffed at the air and listened to them as it circled around the smallish room. It could smell the iron smell of their blood from the wounds.

It was quite intrigued by these two new ones, they smelled different, walked different and looked different from the silhouette than the others that were thrown in here, it sniffs the air again, one male and the other is female. It makes a curious noise, the male is familiar in scent though the creature can't figure out why. It swings its tail, hitting the two new-yet-familiar figures, aiming to slam them into the wall on the right of it, but was pleasantly surprised when both took the tail and recovered easily. It lifts an ear in curiosity, letting out another warble of intrigue, they have something that aids in their balance.

"What did we just get smacked by?" comes Ratchet's question through the dark as he recovered after getting hit by something hard, the beast they're fighting can clearly see them along with smelling them and hearing them almost perfectly. It was making sniffing noises at the air, along with a different noise, one that wasn't a growl (sounded like a large bird if you asked Ratchet).

"A tail, I think," Talwyn observes, walking around to try and find the creature with her hands out, she thinks her hand brushed against something but it danced away from her, jamming something into her back and making sniffing noises, disappearing when she yelped and turned around, feeling air displacement above as something large leaps over her.

At her surprised yelp, Ratchet wheeled around, alarm bells going off in his head, "Talwyn!?" he exclaims with worry, making his way towards her, nearly tripping over a pile of something that clattered. He shuddered when it clicked that that sounded distinctly like bone.

"I'm alright, it just jammed what I think is its nose in my back," she explains when he got to her, Ratchet breathing out a sigh of relief at hearing that she's okay when Clank drops down from his back, his eyes illuminating the creature a bit, it was large, and well, black. At first the creature shied away from the glare slightly before padding up cautiously, its head low and nostrils flaring with each sniff, claws making very small clinks, not unlike the sound of a pen tip on metal.

The beast was curious about the metal one that dropped down from the furry one's back, this one was also familiar to it, and its starting to recall where it smelled these two before, some items in the office of the one that saved it and brought it up here.

"He is curious about us, I do not think he likes Veronica," Clank informs, light from his eyes glinting off the golden eyes of the creature, pupils no longer narrowed. At the mention of Veronica's name, the beast growls, confirming Clank's suspicions.

The Robot notices the leather collar around his neck, the metal tag bearing Slim's mark. He makes this known to Ratchet and Talwyn, whom recovered from their scare, "Ratchet! Look at the tag, it has Slim's mark!" he says, pointing to it, Ratchet taking a look.

The beast seems to recognise Slim's name as he cooed, padding up fully to Ratchet to sniff at him. Yes his smell is familiar, it was on Slim's desk, it does recognise the dusty smell of the male creature's fur.

Ratchet slightly stepped backward from the creature, lifting his hands up slightly as the very large head leaned down to sniff him, "H-hey boy," he says, as if greeting a pet, moving to gently pat the large scaly head. The beast didn't flinch, instead he moved his nose to more underneath Ratchet's hand and purred, catching the Lombax by surprise.

"I...uh think he likes me," he remarks with a grin, Talwyn moving in to pet him too and he allows her.

The beast snorts and shakes himself lightly, looking around the room, going through all the places he's tried to get out of, looking almost quizzical and undeniably very intelligent. Soon the other three join him in looking around, the creature allowing Ratchet to clamber up onto his large broad back to get to the vented window, the creature leaning up against the wall with its front legs.

Ratchet was in mid clamber up the back when his hands come into contact with other shoulders and he stops, feeling slightly past that when he gasps in realisation, "It has wings!" he exclaims, the beast letting out a rumble of something like laughter. The Lombax finishes climbing up the black beast, one foot planted just on the collar, his hands on the beast's head, his tail sticking out to aid in balance. He inspects the vented window with a careful eye. It wasn't a window, it was six slits cut into the ten centimetre thick metal work to allow fresh air to filter through.

"Anything?" Talwyn asks, beast snorting in displeasure at the state of the slit, lowering himself and Ratchet down, the Lombax moving down to his neck.

Ratchet shakes his head, Talwyn just noticing the motion because her eyes got used to the dark. "Nothing, it's just slits cut into ten centimetre thick metal, no easy way out; we'll need a very big explosion to get out of metal that thick," he says, sitting down on the beast's neck.

At the sound of 'big explosion' the beast perked up his ears, leaning down he gestures for Talwyn and Clank to get on, Ratchet helping both up, Clank attaching himself to his friend's back and Talwyn wrapping her arms around his waist. Ratchet grabs the collar as the beast angles himself towards the wall and begins to charge something within his throat. He let's it go and the ball of energy and mass hits the wall with the force of a Nitro-Eruptor.

Now, for those not familiar with the Nitro-Eruptor: imagine a nuke; now, imagine the power of said nuke is within a contained ball of plasma and mass that first implodes then explodes with the force of a thousand suns, along with having smaller bits break off and cause considerably smaller explosions and you have a pretty good idea on what happened to the wall – There isn't one.

Launching a blast that big in a room of that size caused everyone's ears to ring, dazing them briefly as they heard the people on the other side of the door mobilise at sound of the explosion. Seems like the hour the they were fighting Veronica and getting thrown into the room, she brought her employees back – they must've not been far. Shaking his head the beast clears it as the locks on the door begin to be unlocked, the beast turning his head towards it, his riders looking worried.

He opens his wings, iridescent black stripes on them like somebody spilled oil on parts of him, he runs forward, leaping out into the winds, flinging his wings forward to catch the up-draft, the secondary wings on the base of his tail opening up as well as the fan on the end of tail to grab lift. Talwyn and Ratchet hold on just as the beast soars out into the darkening sky, expertly dodging a ship that came to intercept them and launching a different kind of blast, one that was smaller than the nitroblast and purple, instantly exploding the ship into pieces as the escapees rocket past.

Talwyn looks over her shoulder, warning them of the approaching ships, "Ratchet! Creature! We have some on our tail! Almost literally!" Sure enough the fighter ships are approaching quite quickly onto the beast's tail.

Angling his wings in a way to allow himself to fly and look over his shoulder at the same time, he snorts, pulling in his wings he dives down as the ships fire, the rockets passing harmlessly overhead as they rocket towards the facility's training grounds; the beast opening up his wings and soaring harmlessly overhead, tilting his rear wings and going vertical on his axis to go through a gap, Ratchet and Talwyn ducking in time. They make it through effortlessly, the beast levelling out, Talwyn noticing the split sharkogator like spines on the beasts back when she had looked over her shoulder. Those must what makes it have a stable and controlled flight to do such manoeuvres.

Ratchet nearly slipped off the beast when he did that, struggling to hold on to both the collar and keep his girlfriend on, using his thighs to try and stay on as the beast that then spins on his axis, doing an aileron roll to the right to dodge an oncoming missile, Ratchet's hand flashing behind him as he feels Talwyn slip as the beast levels out, pushing her back on.

At nearly loosing one of his passengers the beast decides to loose their attackers in the sea stacks, the sky already a deep indigo and purple of the night, the creature's black hide and iridescent black stripes hid it effortlessly against the sky to the naked eye. But not to infrared. Talwyn and Ratchet suck in a breath as the beast flaps his wings, carrying them effortlessly to the sea stacks, clearly having superb night vision to be able to see in the light of Pokitaru's moon.

They noticed something different in the flight pattern of the beast, while before when the spines were split their flying and manoeuvres where smoother but Ratchet could tell the turning arc was slightly wider; now, the flying is less stable and they quickly picked up speed, Talwyn slips a hand behind her and feels the spines, they're closed.

"Ratchet the spines are closed!" is all she managed to say in warning as the beast rockets down close to the water, kicking up spray as he soars towards the more dangerous route through, aiming to loose their pursuers.

The warning was ample enough to prepare Ratchet for the dip, clenching his thighs on the beast's neck in a way to try not to harm him as he had a death grip on the collar, Talwyn also had a death grip around his waist as the beast swings in a wide, circular arc around a low stack – a barrel roll – that clearly a few of the ships didn't see for they crashed right into it. He levels out then tucks his wings and rear wings in, slipping through a gap that he wouldn't have been able to fit in otherwise, his passengers just barely ducking down in time. He whimpers slightly as he levels out (seems it's getting a bit dark for him too).

The other ships where following too closely, more closely than Ratchet and Talwyn would have liked. Seems Lyrebird has some very agile ships, ships that are also equipped with infrared and are tailing them quite easily, some flying on ahead to box them in.

Ratchet barely sees this, "Crap! They're trying to box us in!" he warns, the beast grumbling in displeasure before he lets out a small, low roar, suddenly dodging several rockets fired at them and returning fire himself. Ratchet heard the echo bounce off the rocks and the ships, instantly realising how the beast could navigate in these conditions.

"Echolocation!" is ripped from Ratchet's throat as the beast dives again after letting out another call, doing it again he does another aileron roll, this time to the left and letting loose four blasts that all hit their targets. Seems this thing never misses. The ships themselves rarely landed hit on them, but did get terrifyingly close.

Clank had his own night vision on, far better than the beast's, but he was using it to mainly watch the approach of a second squadron of ships, swiftly navigating through to their location, flying in loose formation through the stacks with the first squadron. "Ratchet! Talwyn! Creature! A second squadron has joined the fun!" he warns Ratchet, Talwyn and the beast as they begin their approach to the end.

Ratchet curses, then turns his attention to the beast, "Well, looks like we're going to need to loose these guys before we leave," he says, meeting the golden eyes. The beast croons in agreement, doubling back on himself (almost loosing his riders) and heading back in there and firing off two blasts, finishing off the first squadron. Twelve down, twelve more to go – time to shoot some fish in a barrel.

Using his echolocation call he tracks down five of the ships, doing an aileron roll right into the oncoming ship and doing a point blank blast on the ship, effectively destroying it, calling again he manoeuvres to the other four ships he located, dancing gracefully mere centimetres above the darkened water; his riders working in pace with him to not get thrown off, he then releases four blasts in a concession, destroying all four. After those five ships went down in a matter of seconds by the beast changing from the defensive to the offensive, the remaining seven ships adopted a sense of F.E.A.R – Fuck Everything And Run.

Ratchet and Talwyn braced themselves for the upcoming twist after the call, not being thrown off as he launches another three blasts, downing those fleeing ships easily and going to hunt down the remaining four, the beast narrowing his eyes in challenge as he speeds through the stacks, closing the distance between them, Ratchet matching his glee. Four final blasts echo out followed by four explosions, the beast turning out of the sea stacks and easily loosing any other pursuers.

They flew silently back to the island, the flight taking longer due to Clank wanting to further shake of anyone that may still be tracking them, the others agreeing, the beast keeping to the high winds to soar, occasionally turning at Clank's direction as the sun crests over the horizon, Ratchet and Talwyn sitting more straighter on his back.

Ratchet looks to the broad, black head, a healed and recent scar splitting his left lip from his chin up, iridescent markings eerily similar to his, golden eyes looking up at him with curiosity as the Lombax seems to think.

Talwyn notices him thinking, "What are you thinking about?" she asks, wondering what in the universe he's thinking about.

Ratchet smiles and pats the matte black and iridescent black striped scaly neck, the ear-like appendages lifting to listen as Ratchet says, "I was just thinking that our new friend needs a name."

Talwyn nods, agreeing, looking at the beast, his spines closed so that they can get to where they need to go faster. She seems to think, trying to think of the best name for the beast (although not the species, for Slim may have the answer to that).

"Nightwing," Ratchet suddenly blurts out, the beast – no, Nightwing – croons in agreement as they continue their flight.

Talwyn voices her agreement, "Nightwing suites him." patting the scaly skin in front of the wing, the beast reverberating with a warble at the touch. Nightwing pulls them into a gentle glide, to soar above the water, angling his massive tail fins and wings to catch the currents, gliding effortlessly above.

Ratchet had fixed his position to lean more over the beast's neck, Talwyn doing much the same to help reduce drag, the wind whistling in their ears. Nightwing does a few small tricks, mostly aileron rolls and a sweeping barrel roll, he then showed them another cool thing he can do: hovering, his wings moving perpendicular to his body, tail slightly lowered for the fan to catch the wind, the tail fin fan bobbing slightly to help. He then went back on his way to their destination.

When they had finally reached the island where they were, everyone at first fled at seeing the large black unknown beast; but once some saw Ratchet, Clank and Talwyn on it, they figured it was friendly and walked up with intrigue as they landed. Aphelion also joined them, Nightwing showing interest in the ship and padding up without allowing Ratchet and Talwyn to get off.

They slide off the beast, landing immediately arse-first as their legs buckle from the fast flying, Nightwing pulling himself away from sniffing Aphelion to check on his rider, cooing at Ratchet and Talwyn as they shakily get up.

"Ratchet, Talwyn," Aphelion starts, Nightwing leaping up in surprise at the ship talking, looking towards her with widened eyes, mouth open. Ratchet notes he doesn't see teeth as Aphelion continues, "What did you find?" she finishes asking, having seen that they're alright as Nightwing stalks towards the ship, sniffing it.

"Veronica is the leader," Ratchet says, Clank giving him a tape measure while Talwyn drags Nightwing's attention away from the ship and to her so they can measure him and figure him out before having to figure out how to go back to Veldin to talk to Slim.

"Oh...I suppose you can tell me on the way back on a transport to Veldin, I won't be able to carry him," Aphelion says as the trio begin to log his description and length into Clank's database to store since they have a feeling they're keeping him.

Nightwing had a broad, vaguely triangular shaped head with six flexible ear spines used for hearing most likely, two small ones on top of the head, two larger ones where ears would be located and two smaller ones below that; on both sides of his chin he has three spine-like dull nubs protruding. His thick neck is bare, but, right when the wings start he has a single row of sharkogator like spines that stop just before the base of the tail, these can split. The wings are broad with six fingers stretching out the leathery webbing between them; his legs are short with lean and defined muscles (like the rest of him) with four digits on quadrupedal platigrade feet, long slightly curved razor-sharp talons on them. His tail is long and very slightly flat, smaller spines on either side starting from the end of the secondary wings – clearly used to assist in those sharp turns and tricks, functioning like a birds' tail feathers – and down to the start of the fan-like tail fin on the end of the tail.

Ratchet opens up the fan gently, only capable of flicking out flat, unlike the secondary wings, which are more like auxiliary tails with two 'fingers' to stretch out the webbing and clearly on a swivel joint with separate muscles to control the movement; unlike the tail fin, which just had four long ridged fingers that had no extra jointing but being capable to bend slightly. These are just meant for tail lift. He closes the black tail.

"Ratchet! Look!" Talwyn calls to him from the front of the beast, holding up his gummy jaw to reveal a second jaw with a row of sharp, omnivorous teeth that was currently closed while the main jaw was open, giving Nightwing an odd look while he laid there, accepting it. Ratchet walked over to look, the beast opening up the jaw to pull away, showing off that he can snap it forward when he opens his lead jaw further; the thick neck making a lot of sense as Ratchet and Clank shudder. "Imagine sticking your hand in that," Ratchet commented.

"You would not have one," Clank commented back while tossing Ratchet the tape measure so that they can measure him with Aphelion's help to convert the numbers. They started with his length from nose to tail which fell at seven point nine metres or twenty-six feet, his individual wingspan is fourteen point six metres or forty-eight feet, height from the ground to the top of his shoulders before the wings is two point two metres or seven feet and one inch. In order to calculate his weight, they had him land on Aphelion; he did so carefully, trying not to scrape the paint up or the windshield.

Aphelion seems to do some calculations while Nightwing sat on her, the end of his long tail drooping over the edge, the secondary wings were curled up all nice and neat with the fingers arranged in a curled way as well; the auxiliary tails that make up the whole wing were nearly the length of the tail as well, stopping just in front on the tail fin fan.

"He weighs approximately 805.6 kilograms or 1776 pounds," comes Aphelion's answer after the moment of calculating.

They nod as the black beast climbs down from Aphelion, being equally as careful as when he climbed up, his broad and clean cut iridescent black stripes simmering in the sunlight. The way his stripes were it looked like somebody covered most of him in a ships' decal template and spilled black oil on him; he had two curved striped on either side of the small spines on top of his head, the first small pair of the broad tendrils have a small arrow-like stripe pointing towards the end of the tendrils. The larger ones had three as opposed to one, the same arrow-like design that also points to the end of the ear, much like the ones on Ratchet's own ears. Two of them are on the lower tendril.

On his neck he has three stripes that wrap around the spine, the one near his head and the one near his shoulders are longer than the one in the middle, same arrow-like design going down his back stopping just before his tail fin. Fourteen follow the length of both of his wings, going vertically down his wings near to he edge of the webbing, two on the upper parts of all four of his legs, three on his side, rear wings and tail fin.

Ratchet takes a step back, admiring Nightwing while he cleaned himself; turning to Clank he asks, "Did you get all of that, Clank?"

The Robot nods, saving the information they procured onto his sisterboard, having prepared several files in his database for these when he remembers something, "Ratchet, Talwyn, he hurt himself flying through that one sea stack, yet we did not find anything."

Talwyn walks around the beast, inspecting him, looking for any scratch. She didn't find any, turning to Ratchet she shrugs, "I don't see anything, but Clank's right," she confirms, looking again when black nose comes in to sniff her, sniffing at the healed cut on her collarbone, blood still staining her shirt.

Ratchet sees this motion, looking to his own blood-stained fur while walking towards Nightwing. He turns to Talwyn, "Tal, why don't you change into a new shirt while I find this injury, and get me a towel to clean off," he says, walking towards the beast as Talwyn jumps into Aphelion to change; the ship darkens her windows to allow Talwyn some privacy while she changed.

"Okay, Nightwing, were did you hurt yourself?" Ratchet asks, looking around the beast with a careful eye, trying to find the injury when the beast lifts up his right fore paw, hovering it for the Lombax to hold, flinching away from the claws and holding the paw, the claws curling to hold his hands slightly. Seems that these guys have grasping ability and Ratchet notices that on Nightwing's forearm he lost a few scales forcefully yet there is no sign of blood.

He studies it with a quizzical look when Nightwing licks the blood at his collarbone or more specifically the nanite healed cut on it and it dawned on Ratchet: Slim gave Nightwing nanites, no wonder they couldn't find anything since the water spray would have also washed the blood off. He inspects the healed injury for a moment longer, Clank coming over to see when a towel hits Ratchet's face with a soft 'fwump', draping over his head and ears.

He turns to Talwyn, still with the towel on his head as he releases Nightwing's paw; he says what he discovered to Talwyn, "He has nanites." He takes the towel off of his head to begin to wipe away the blood from his fur after dipping the rag into some water. She inspects the forearm, noting the missing scales and nodding in interest, "So that's why we didn't find anything," she comments, standing up.

Nightwing then lays down with a massive thud and sprawls out to absorb the sun, letting out a content grunt as his rider and his rider's friends dodge out of the way. He quite likes this planet, reminds him of home almost; he wiggles into the dirt slightly, he wonders if his furry friend can take him home, Slim couldn't take him back for something about "getting caught by the authorities" which he didn't understand. He didn't understand the humans' rules and the ones up here are weirder. Apparently only this 'Ratchet' can do free things; Nightwing focuses a gold eye on his rider, they called him Ratchet, so he must be who Slim means.

"Aphelion, are there any transports going to Veldin?" the metal one asks, Nightwing thinks they call this one 'Clank', which is pretty descriptive, since the beast can hear he clanks.

The talking-ship seems to think before she answers, "Next Wednesday at noon there will be one." From the groans that answer procured, Nightwing levelled that the group didn't like the time frame meaning they wanted to go to this 'Veldin' with haste. He doesn't care though, it means he can fly with his new friend and the talking-ship.

Nightwing levels a golden eye on Ratchet and his almost-mate, talking about what to do; he snorts, grasping their belts with his talons he pulls them to his side to sit down against him. He thinks that they should rest before doing anything.

When the beast hooked his talons into their belts they were caught by surprise before landing against the warm scales of Nightwing's belly, laying one of his front paws and back paws in their laps to keep them down. They didn't realise how tired they were until they sat down.

"Before we do anything, we should nap," Ratchet says, leaning carefully against the beast as he adjusts himself to curl around them; Talwyn nods, yawning, leaning against Ratchet and Nightwing, getting comfortable as a wing moves over to keep the sun off. All three promptly fall asleep, Clank occupying himself with talking to Aphelion about what happened.


	3. Return toSender?

It was fine day on Pokitaru (it always is, unless it's storm season, then it's not) a week later and a shrill screech that sounds not unlike a passing fighter ship – except it wasn't – it was Nightwing, soaring overhead with Ratchet on his back, the Lombax is testing a saddle without Talwyn at the moment, making sure he can stay on before getting Talwyn to join; as such Talwyn was on the ground with Clank, eating a bowl of the fried batons not unlike chips with a different seasoning not unlike chicken salt, watching Ratchet and Nightwing put a spin in their dive, levelling out and gliding overhead before landing a few metres behind them.

Talwyn and Clank walk up as Ratchet takes off his helmet; it was one of the basic ones he had stored in Aphelion already to prevent his eyes from drying out from the highspeeds. Clank logs in the manoeuvres into his harddrive as Ratchet hops down, the robot commenting with, "That two person saddle is holding up against the G-forces remarkably well."

Ratchet nods, agreeing, "Yeah, it's holding my weight pretty well," he admires his patched handiwork, having worked with scraps he scrounged from the nearby repair hangar. It doesn't look pretty but it does the job well enough.

"We should see if it holds two people, like it was designed to do," Talwyn remarks, beginning to prepare to get on the saddle when Ratchet stops her, "Talwyn, you just ate; you'll throw up. This isn't a ship," he mentions.

"Ratchet is right, the G-forces are stronger than they are in a ship," Clank expands, knowing Ratchet himself already nearly threw up after breakfast. (Well...not nearly, he did)

Talwyn relents, "Alright, I'll wait for a few minutes." She sits down next to Nightwing, the beast copying her, leaning over to sniff at her before deciding to just chill. Soon though the beast gets bored and begins to walk around the shelf that the group was occupying to keep the beast away from the town (and not because Ratchet coined the idea to charge people for flights on the beast). Ratchet soon joins his girlfriend in sitting down and they both watch Nightwing pad around the shelf while they wait for Talwyn's stomach to settle. The shelf was located near the main city though not to close to bother anyone.

"Hey Ratchet, what do you think we'll find when we officially fight Lyrebird and Veronica?" Talwyn asks out of the blue, Ratchet looking at her when she asked the question, turning away slightly to think about it before answering, "probably the usual, armed guards, danger, one of us nearly gets killed, more guards, one of us nearly gets killed, I face the leader alone, and either beat them or they kick my rear and you save me." He said it very casually and like he's been through it many times before. It never bothers him anymore.

A sad look passes over Talwyn's face before she answers, almost hopefully, "What if it's not the same? What if it's different?" she knows that the three universes he's been in, no one except her helped him to beat the villain; they all decided they had better things to do, even going so far as to charge him for upgrades and the like (not that he minded, really, he earns more than enough bolts).

Ratchet shrugs, "Then it's different, but I'm not going to expect things to be different. I want to be pleasantly surprised if that's the case," he states, leaning back to look up slightly.

"I for one will welcome a change," Clank piques up, he's telling the truth, sometimes being the only one or two or three people saving a galaxy or three gets really old after a while.

Talwyn nods, then thinks, "What world do you think we'll be going to? Terra-1, Terra-2 or Terra-3?" she asks, leaning back on her arms in the sun.

"Hmmmm, Terra-1, more traffic has been going to it so that one seems more likely," Ratchet suggests, pulling what they knew already and matching it to the most plausible planet.

"I wonder what we'll find..." Talwyn trails off, picking a flower and letting Ratchet weave it into her hair which she washed today, as well as letting him stylise it into a braid that hung down her back.

While they were doing that, Clank noticed that something was off: Nightwing is gone and he figures that it'd be a good idea to alert Ratchet and Talwyn, "Ratchet, Talwyn, Nightwing is gone," he says, walking around the shelf, looking where the beast might've ran off to.

Talwyn and Ratchet go wide-eyed with horror, quickly getting up – and in Ratchet's case, literally leaping up – and going to look around for the beast; Ratchet cups his hands to his mouth, "Nightwing!" he calls, summoning the beast if he's anywhere. They hear a call from the next shelf above them, sounding like it's stuck in something and they climb up to go find the source. Talwyn using rocks to climb up and Ratchet just does a standing leap onto the shelf with Clank on his back.

They start looking around the shelf for the beast, mostly grass and rocks with a grate to the sewers that looks suspiciously like it was shoved open then moved back on its own. They jump when a guilty sounding warble floats out of it, Ratchet and Talwyn peering in to to see Nightwing standing in sewer sludge looking rather sheepish; the closed grate preventing him from leaping out since it's also too deep for him to do so, as well as having no grip.

Ratchet had no idea how to feel about this, instead of feeling mad he just hung his head and chuckled slightly, leaning down to the lift the grate up when he finds it's a lot heavier than expected; he waves Talwyn over, "Help me move this." Talwyn walks over to help him slide the grate open, before finding that it's even too heavy for two people to slide up. After straining to try to slide open they both step back, trying to look at from another angle when Ratchet notices something, pointing it out to Talwyn and Nightwing, "The ladder's missing!" Sure enough, it was, Nightwing looking around for this 'ladder' while Talwyn figures out how it's gone missing, looking at the mounts.

"It looks removable, someone must've removed it after they got down to prevent others from following," she observes while Ratchet is telling Nigthwing what a ladder looks like using his hands and telling him, "Two vertical bars with horizontal bars holding them together." He turned his head as Talwyn speaks, registering what she said; he nods as they watch Nightwing walk down one length of the tube to look for the ladder, clearly knowing not to drink the swill accumulating stuff in the pools he's walking in.

Something comes to Clank, "Why would someone remove the ladder? Even the Plumber leaves the ladders intact," he muses, trying to wonder why the ladder was moved.

"Possibly for another entrance?" Ratchet supplies before adding, "probably not much to it, don't think so far into it." After that it fell quite and they all listen for the sounds of Nightwing hopefully returning with a ladder.

A series of periodic clangs echo down the tube followed by a loud clatter that made Ratchet wince; a shrill squealing noise echos down that was very short lived as Nightwing found not to drag it, making disgruntled snorting noises before he carries it back to the grate: it was a ladder.

With Ratchet's and Talwyn's help he figured out the mounting bits on the ladder (that part was without their direction, which was impressive) but he needed help guiding it to the slots; once in he immediately scales the ladder, the metal surprisingly holding his weight as he helps ratchet and Talwyn to open the grate, doing so easily and he slips out. Once on the grass he tries to shake the gunk off without licking, the smell alone told him not too.

Ratchet grabs a nearby hose, attached to a facet and he turns it on, accidentally spraying Nightwing's rump with the jet function before promptly fixing it at the beast's startled expression, causing both Talwyn and Ratchet to laugh before using the shower function and some soap to clean off the gunk that was clunked up on the saddle as well.

Soon they were finished and Nightwing was a very clean animal who then promptly rolled in the grass, causing the trio to laugh as he gets some of the excess water off; he finishes and pads up to them, lowering himself down so that they could climb up to test the dual person saddle before it's time to leave to get on the transport and go to Veldin. Nightwing launches himself straight into the air, catching an up-draft and soaring up into the sky, briefly flying vertical to spin and catch said up-draft, leaving his riders a bit dizzy. Talwyn had some aviator goggles that she slipped on before the beast launched up.

He starts to do several more spins, corkscrews and dives, actually aiming to try to knock Talwyn off to fully test the saddle; after the gut-wrenching manoeuvres he levels out and simply soars from current to current, hardly finding the need the flap as he makes this look easy, cutting through the winds like a hand saw blade through an arm. He then pulls into a sharp dive, opening his spines he then opens up his wings and rockets above the water, kicking up spray and weaving, bouncing from current to current.

They're on their fourth lap around the island when Aphelion catches up to them, matching Nightwing's speed easily. "Our transport to Veldin is here," she informs, Nightwing immediately banking to turn around to land in the transport ship, showing no fear of it; Aphelion followed and the conductor decided he really liked Nightwing for his behaviour as both ship and beast get themselves situated in their assigned spots.

The transport proved to be very empty, mostly filled with other animals and other imported stock to go to Veldin and they soon got to the desert planet; the galaxy saving crew gets off first to avoid being trampled by the other animals. Nightwing flinching at the heat from the planet before being coaxed out by Ratchet and Talwyn, soon they're on their way to Slim's hideout.

Clank was the first to walk after jumping down from Ratchet's back, walking into the warehouse, catching Slim's attention. "We found something that belonged to you in Veronica's 'care'," the Robot says with a small chuckle.

Slim quirks an unseen eyebrow, about to ask what he means when Nightwing bounds in to escape the heat, Ratchet and Talwyn stepping in after him; the beast looking at Slim and crooning. "Ah, I was wondering where he went...She must have stolen him. So what did you find out?" He asks.

"Veronica Buttress is the leader of Lyrebird, though the suspicions of her going to Terra-1 hasn't been proven," Talwyn reports as Ratchet pats Nightwing's scaly head. Slim groans.

"Though they don't have to be, clearly that's where they're going more often," Ratchet adds as he rubs Nightwing's scarred belly, the beast absorbing the attention which made the Lombax ask his next question, "What is Nightwing anyway? Since you've clearly been there."

"Else you would not have him if you did not," Clank adds in jestful accusation.

"The natives call them dragons, Nightwing – as you call him – is a dragon species called Night Fury, an endangered species due to the natives – these humans – hunting them and many of the other dragon species," Slim informs, sliding an electronic file forward, Talwyn picking it up and beginning to look through it. "Those are the dragons that I saw when I was there and before I came across Nightwing; there's a lot more there though," he continued from his previous thought.

Ratchet observes the scar on Nightwing's belly, a harpoon to the stomach, he wouldn't have survived this on his own without nanites, he turns slightly to face Slim's box, asking, "Hey Slim, is this wound why you gave him nanites?"

The floating pair of eyes that belong to Slim look over to the Lombax and dragon, Nightwing's golden eyes looking back at him as the hidden man answers with, "Yep, I saved him from a party of the native hunters there and well, he wasn't going to live long so I gave him a canister of the nanites I had on me. Then I took him up here to study – and because he followed me."

Ratchet looks to Night who croons innocently. "Why didn't you take him back?" Ratchet interrogates, wanting to know as much as he can.

"I didn't because that was also roughly around the time Lyrebird started becoming active and the police upped their patrol routes, and, well I didn't want to be caught with a foreign animal in my cargo bay," Slim answers smoothly as Talwyn gives Clank the file to download the other dragons off of. The hidden man watches the exchange before he continues, "But of course, you guys have the means and the allowance to go there with him."

Ratchet nods, standing up, the black dragon matching his movement in sync which got a laugh out of Talwyn, and her to earn a confused look from both Lombax and dragon. Ratchet focuses his attention to Slim, "Alright, we got it; Talwyn, Clank, let's get a transport to Marcadia and tell Sasha what happened on Pokiaru," he says, beginning to walk out.

"Good luck you three, it may be hard for me to get to Terra-1 but see what you can find before you need to contact me," Slim calls behind them as they depart the warehouse and begin their trek back to Ratchet's hangar.

"So what armour and weapons will we bring?" Talwyn asks as they stroll through the baked dirt, Nightwing stopping every so often to sniff at everything new; for that reason they walked slowly to give the dragon time to absorb the new world.

Ratchet thinks on it, "Duraplate for me, should do for now, I have a spare for you too. As for weapons, well I'll stick with my wrench and I have a retractable staff somewhere for you to use for the time there," he answers, Talwyn smiling at him as he thinks about where he put that thing.

Clank speaks up from in between the couple, "Not thinking about bringing any of the big guns?" he asks, Ratchet shakes his head. "I think we should make a better impression without them," he says, smartly; normally he wouldn't care, but he didn't want to help Veronica in screwing over a developing race.

Talwyn gasps, "We forgot to ask Slim where would be a good place to ask while on Terra-1!" she looked worriedly at her friends.

"Well...we could just fly around till we find something, but that would eat into time, Clank, did you find anything in that file Talwyn handed to you?" Ratchet asks, looking at Clank.

Clank nods, "I have something: the Monstrous Nightmare, Gronkle, Hideous Zippleback and Deadly Nadder dragon species are commonly found on an island called 'Berk', Slim's footnotes mention that these specific human natives tame the dragons to ride. We should try to find this place and ask there for help; I feel we shall be better received by riding a dragon," he finishes, gesturing to Nightwing who's already taking shelter in the hangar as the trio walk in to join him.

"I will organise with Aphelion the transport that will take us to Marcadia, or we call Sasha to pick us up in a drop ship," Clank offers, standing outside with the ship in question as Ratchet and Talwyn head inside, turning around when Clank spoke. The pair nod in affirmation, Ratchet gesturing loosely to the armour sets half on their stands and half piled up on the floor, commenting, "We'll be preparing loosely for the trip." They then went to tidy up and pack, leaving Clank and Aphelion to converse; Nightwing proceeded to sniff around.

Four hours later they're back at Marcadia in the conference room, this time with Nightwing stuffed into the room with them, the others looking on with confusion and to Ratchet to explain himself for bringing a very big reptile indoors.

Sasha voices this, "Ratchet...Why is there a giant black lizard next to you?" she asks, hesitantly watching the dragon look around the room with wide golden eyes.

"Aaahhhmmmm...Because there's more of his species and breed on Terra-1 and we rescued him from Veronica Buttress?" he answers with slight hesitance and knowing he might be a little screwed, he's wearing his Duraplate Steel armour, two wrenches strapped to his hip.

Clank speaks up, "We went to Pokitaru and found out that Veronica Buttress is leader of Lyrebird and they may be doing serious exploitation of Terra-1 that may also include exotic pet trafficking," he says, simply stating the facts of what was revealed and what added up.

"She tried very hard to remove us from the picture," Talwyn piques up, she's also wearing Duraplate Steel armour and what looks to be a retractable steel staff strapped to her right boot.

Sasha nods, absorbing the information and still staring at Nightwing, everyone moving slightly as the dragon decides to sniff around, becoming fascinated by Al's cyborg body, sniffing him quite thoroughly; the mechanic looking mighty uncomfortable, crying out for some help, "Raaaatcheet..."

Ratchet was talking with Talwyn, Clank and Sasha so he didn't see Nightwing bothering Al until the cyborg cried for help; the Lombax looking over and calling the dragon to his side first by catching his attention by calling out his name then taping his left thigh, Nightwing bounding over to Ratchet's left side quickly at being called.

Sasha takes a step back, "Y-you're training him?" she asks, watching how quickly Nightwing responded to both his name and the silent command.

Ratchet looks over to the Cazar at her question after he patted Nightwing, answering, "Yeah, I guess I am." He shrugs lightly, scratching underneath the dragon's chin, causing him to lean down for more to get the best of them; Talwyn laughing at it, Sasha smiling lightly, commenting, "he's like a house pet almost."

Nightwing nearly stepped on Clank but stepped over him, even gently nudging him out of the way slightly so he doesn't crush the metal companion in his love of getting scratches. Soon Talwyn adds some of her own pats to the scaly beast.

Ratchet and Talwyn stop petting him to give him a light break when Ratchet looks to Sasha, asking and offering something, "Would you like to pet him?"

Sasha shows some hesitance, looking at him then Ratchet and Talwyn then back at Nightwing; making a decision she slowly reaches her hand out, patting Nightwing's head and he croons. She pulls her hand away, smiling lightly, "Thank you," She says to all four of them.

They nod when Skid notices something, pointing it out, "Whoa dudes is that a saddle?!" he says, gesturing to the patch-worked leather and metal seat on the dragon's back.

Ratchet nods, answering, "Yes it is, it's for the both of us to hang on while we fly around the Terra-1."

Sasha remembers the mission, her ears perking up in realisation, "Oh that's right! You need someway to get there don't you? I can organise a drop ship as long as you guys are ready?" she offers, seems she definitely knows how important this is.

Talwyn, Ratchet and Clank share a few glances, nodding; Ratchet being the one that answers, "We've got what we need, we'll be able to quickly get on once it's ready."

The Cazar nods, departing from the room, leaving the four that are soon to depart to chat with the others on a supposed plan when they get to Terra-1; Qwark was being far from useful, trying to give them an exact plan when they had no idea what to expect from the planet. Soon Sasha returns and Ratchet, Talwyn, Nightwing and Clank are well on their way to the new planet. Aphelion had to stay on Marcadia because she could not come with them to where they are going.


End file.
